Gimmicks
by Smart Alex
Summary: Vignettes based on the musical 'Gypsy'.
1. un NEVER GROW UP

**Gimmicks  
**Vignettes/drabbles based on 'Gypsy'

un. **NEVER GROW UP**

June couldn't breathe for a minute, caught up in the exhilaration of  
tremendous applause, of being swung around in Tulsa's arms, the both of them  
laughing so hard together.

"Golly, June! Isn't that the grandest sound you've ever heard?" Tulsa  
crowed, putting her down and hugging her tightly. "Our first act together,  
and the audience loved us!"

June nodded, smiling at him as she pillowed her head on his shoulder. Such a  
kid. Momma's number did indeed do something to Tulsa, gave him an excuse to  
goof around and stay unbittered for a while longer.

She noticed that he was saying something to her.

"You're a great partner," he said. "I'm glad you're with me."

Yes, he'd never grow up, really.

But she already had.


	2. deux SHOULDA BEEN

deux. **SHOULDA BEEN**

"I can't wear this out there! The hole's too big, it'll show like anything,"  
Tulsa insisted, brow deeply furrowed in what was becoming an altogether too  
familiar frown.

She felt the same old resentment come to the surface. "I did the best I  
could, Tulsa."

Who was she, to sit over a faded blue suit late at night, by the light of  
the streetlamps, painstakingly lessening each hole? Her fingers all scarred  
by constant pinpricks, irritated by the cold cream and makeup that would  
brush against them the following night.

This wasn't what she wanted, ever. She wanted  
someone to take her away and sooth her soul, understand what she meant.

She didn't want to be depended on by someone who only saw her supposed  
talent - and not her. Never her.

"I bet Lou-" he started, cutting himself off.

June could finish his sentence for him. Louise could have fixed it up for  
him beautifully. With rhinestones on the lapel.

Well, if he wanted Louise so badly, why didn't he marry her instead?

It should've been Louise in that hotel room, that night.

It should've been her.


	3. trois AGELESS

trois.** AGELESS**

Louise is tall for her age.

She looms over June, who is dainty and petite. She even looms over some of  
the boys they've picked up along the road. Soon she will be nearly as tall as her mother.

Perhaps, Rose thinks, it's all the Chinese food they've been eating. She has heard  
strange things about foreign food, and it's possible that there is some mysterious ingredient  
that made Louise grow so much. But chow mein is a cheap and easy meal to come by,  
unlike the steak-and-potato dinners her own mother used to make, and she isn't going to  
strain the budget just to fix her awkward daughter.

Louise is, at the age of ten, extraordinarily mature in appearance. Of course, the illusion  
shatters the moment she opens her mouth. Jump ropes! Stuffed toys! Dresses! all things a  
little girl would love, and her eyes shine when she mentions them. But Louise makes a much  
better boy, with her coarse hair and height, so Rose can't find it in herself to dress her in anything  
other than pants.

June is like a perfect little doll, all frills and curls. Perhaps Louise will grow into her looks.  
There must be some of her mother's looks in her, somewhere. She can't be all her father.  
Rose won't stand for it.

But the older Louise becomes, the taller she will get, and the more awkward she will appear,  
Rose thinks darkly. What a pity she can't just stay a child forever.

Louise is playing with June in the dirt, sticking a blade of grass into a mudpie in a game of  
Let's Pretend. June crouches, her skirt carefully tucked into her ruffled bloomers so that it won't  
get dirty, and sings _Happy Birthday, Louise_, in her high treble voice. Rose watches them and  
wonders how she could have forgotten it was her child's birthday.

The idea dawns on her as she puts candles on Louise's real birthday cake, that night. She counts  
out eleven, and takes one off, and puts it back in her bag.

"Gee, Louise, you're only ten?" the boys clamor.

Louise looks puzzled. "But Momma, wasn't I ten last year?"

"I counted wrong," Rose says, and smiles.


End file.
